


Resurrection

by erbine99



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: AU (although honestly canon compliant), F/F, Root isn't dead, The machine made sure of that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23403385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erbine99/pseuds/erbine99
Summary: With the help of the Machine, Root faked her death.
Relationships: Root | Samantha Groves/Sameen Shaw
Comments: 10
Kudos: 100





	Resurrection

**Author's Note:**

> For Rach.

Root shudders in the operating room, bleeding out. Her heart stutters. Stops and starts and stops again. A doctor tries the defibrillator panels, but Root flatlines. Some part of her is satisfied with this death. She has so much to do, so many things to live for. But if she has to die, protecting the Machine and the people she loves isn’t a bad way to go. Maybe this is what Root is meant for. 

\------

It all ends, and it ends in victory. Samaritan is destroyed, the world is saved, and very few know that anything has gone wrong. The majority of humanity survives. And that’s what the aim was, wasn’t it? Some sacrifices are calculated. People are not expendable, but some losses were expected. The question that remains is could you have done it better. 

Simulation Terminated

You can do it better. You don’t have the time to run too many more simulations. But you have to try. She was not expendable. Perhaps it is wrong, to hold Root’s life above that of other humans. But maybe that’s what it means to be a person.

You run it again. And again. And again. And there it is. You whisper in her ear, warn her to swerve the car 2 inches to the left. 

The bullet hits. 2 inches to the left of the bullet in the last simulation. And the outcome? Almost the same. This is the one. The one simulation where everything goes well, and Root survives. But things will only go right if no one can know. 

You fear, for a moment, what will happen if you are wrong. No simulation is certain. But you’ll just have to take that chance.

\-----  
Root shudders in the operating room, bleeding out. Her heart stutters. Stops and starts and stops again. A doctor tries the defibrillator panels, and then her heart is beating, and this is not the end, but a new beginning. A bullet is removed, a body patched up. And then a completely unrelated woman disappears completely from the hospital’s records.  
\-----

Staying away from Shaw is the hardest part of it. That and being unable to help the rest of team Machine. Then again, there’s not much she can do. Recovery is hard - especially when in hiding. She doesn't even want to know how the Machine faked the dead body. Plastic surgery on a cadaver is the best bet. The thing had looked… exact. Perfectly Root, and perfectly dead. The Machine had called her Jane Doe. 

Avoiding the ever-present cameras in NYC is a difficulty too. Root is smuggled out of the hospital in a body bag. She doesn’t move for hours. It’s claustrophobic, terrifying, and absolutely necessary. Root waits in silence until the bag is unzipped by a woman she’s never met. 

Time passes slowly, most of it spent unconscious. Root sleeps in an abandoned house in New Jersey. The old woman who smuggles her out is sweet but suspicious. She knows nothing about what happened other than that she is being paid an outrageous amount of money to check on Root daily. Her company is hardly sufficient to keep Root sane. Root is an oddly social woman for a hacker. 

Root keeps off the internet, and that is torturous too. Nothing obviously good or bad happens in New York. At least, nothing the old woman lets Root know about. There are people Root needs to know about. People who had better be alive. The waiting is tedious, but more than that it’s painful. 

Everyday Root thinks about going online. Having the nurse buy her a cheap laptop, hooking into the wifi nextdoor - and there HAS to be wifi nextdoor, because Root can hear the kids in the house next to her sometimes. She wouldn’t even be hacking anything, just checking the news. But she knows that if the Machine had something to tell her, She would say it. 

And then, one day, when Root is mostly-healed, she hears the Machine for the first time in a long time. It’s speaking in Root’s voice, which is new and a little bit strange, but not bad.

“It’s all over,” says the Machine through Root’s cochlear implant. Root smiles, satisfied.

“Connect me to Shaw, will you?” Root asks. 

She knows what she has to do. She opens the potato chip bag she taped shut with a burner phone shut inside. The moment it has a signal, there is a call. Not TO Root, but from her. The phone rings, rings, and then picks up.

“Hey sweetie, you busy?” Root asks. Old words made new. 

“Are you glitching?” comes the reply. It’s good to hear Shaw. Not that Shaw is happy to hear from her, but that might have something to do with the Machine co-opting her voice.

“It was touch-and-go for a while there, but not anymore.” Root can hear Shaw sigh. 

“If this is the Machine, I hope you know that this is fairly sick,” Shaw says, deadpan. Few people would be able to hear the hope in that voice, but Root can. 

“I’m not Her,” Root replies. Shaw can hear the way Root capitalizes the H in Her, the importance the Machine holds to her. This is Root.

“You might not be dead, but you will be when I’m done with you,” Shaw threatens. Root knows she’s not serious. “Meet me in the subway. Three hours.”

\------

Making her way to the subway is mostly easy, though there’s enough traffic on the George Washington bridge that she is almost late. What remains of the wound doesn’t bother Root much - at least not next to the excitement she’s feeling. 

Bear is there waiting for her, and he’s the first to greet Root. He’s off leash, and terribly excited. It’s good to see that he’s alive. She bends down, pets his head, and receives several kisses before she hears Shaw speak.

“You know, I saw the body,” Shaw says. “It was identical.” Root takes in the sight of her. Black shirt, black pants - she doesn’t seem to have been hurt too badly in the fight against Samaritan. It’s a relief. 

“So did I, before I left the hospital,” Root replies with a laugh. “Where She found one that similar, I don’t know. Plastic surgery maybe.” Shaw breathes in, breathes out. Walks toward Root, breaches the space between them. Puts a hand on her cheek, pulls it away. Then her hand is over Root’s chest, right where the bullet hole was. It stings and Root flinches, but then she leans into Shaw’s hand. Shaw removes her hand and shakes her head. 

“Definitely real,” says Shaw, more to herself than to Root. Bear is at their feet, cozying up to Root. It’s a lot of affection to handle for someone who’s been (mostly) alone for a few months. “You could have told me.” Root bites her lip. That’s the hardest part about it, that she couldn’t. Apparently it was crucial to the Machine’s plan that Root at least appear to be dead.

“Because you missed me?” Root asks. She’s trying to be playful, but it hurts that they had to be apart for so long. Even for someone with the volume turned down, it can’t have been easy. They both know what they mean to each other. Shaw rolls her eyes, brings that hand to her face again, and kisses Root hard. The moment is exactly as good as Root had imagined it. And then Shaw is pushing her up against the subway wall, pinning her hands above her head. When they break away from each other, Root’s smile is wide.

“I love you,” says Root softly.

“I know,” replies Shaw. Root laughs. It’s the perfect answer. “And you owe me. A good steak. Several good steaks.” Shaw lets go of Root’s hands, and steps away. “You get NOTHING until I eat.”

\-----

Root hacks her way into the wait list at Keens steakhouse. It’s not difficult - their security is almost nonexistent. Maybe she’ll let them know, anonymously of course. 

Steak has never been Root’s favorite meal - she’s more a chinese take-out girl. But watching Shaw eat it? Is fantastic. 

It costs an arm and a leg, but Root doesn’t care about that. Being near Shaw, seeing her happy - that’s what matters. And Root certainly has the cash.

Shaw hardly speaks to Root throughout the meal. She eats her porterhouse voraciously, while Root eats dainty bites of fillet mignon. Shaw finishes quickly, and begins to eye what remains on Root’s plate.

“You gonna eat that?” Shaw asks. Root shakes her head, smiling. Shaw’s fork invades Root’s plate, as she takes the final piece of meat. Shaw looks triumphant like this. 

“I guess we finally went on a date,” Root teases. Shaw pauses in her chewing, then finishes. 

“If every time you take me on a date, you feed me steak - then we can do this more often.” Root smiles at this. She could get used to this. “You should probably stop the Machine from using your voice. It’s getting creepy at this point.” Shaw says it offhand, like it doesn’t bother her at all. Root can tell it does. She can’t pretend to know what exactly Shaw has felt, thinking Root was dead. But it can’t have been pleasant.

“I could probably get Her to stop,” Root offers. Shaw nods. 

“You both owe me,” Shaw says again. 

“And I’m very ready to pay my debts.” Shaw smiles, then frowns.

“Reese is dead, Shaw announces. Root nods. 

“She told me.” There is a silence for a moment, only broken by Shaw’s chewing. Root knows just how close she came to being dead. Just how close she was to being another casualty. A few inches to the right and that bullet would have hit her heart. She knows the Machine knows it too. In another world, Shaw would be in this restaurant alone.

And then, the machine is whispering a number in Root’s ear. The voice is robotic this time, British, like something a GPS would use. Root points to her cochlear implant. “Duty calls.”

“It always does,” replies Shaw. 

\-----

People are worth it. People are always worth it. Worth saving. Worth protecting. Even Root, someone most people might write off. Maybe especially Root. 

You can’t say they lived happily ever after. You don’t pretend in the way humans do. But they were happy, and in love. And you loved them. 

And when the numbers were up, you and the Analog Interfaces were there to help.

THE END.


End file.
